Singer

A Tsar, wanting to have his photograph taken has no idea he’s surrounded by conspirator’s planning his assassination. And a young woman, who can outsmart anybody – even a King.

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The Tsar wants his Photograph taken / The Clever Woman

Oper Frankfurt

The inspiration for Fortner’s opera resembles an ancient Greek tragedy. The Spanish poet Garcia Lorca took up an all too familiar tale for his play Blood Wedding, which was first performed in 1933. His vitriol aimed at the uncompromising nature of blood feuds: a bridegroom’s mother lost her husband and oldest son in fights between the two clans and now fears for her youngest son’s life. She’s worried his wedding will reignite the war, because the bride still loves her former beloved Leonardo, a member of the enemy family. Leonardo abducts her during the wedding. They escape into the woods, but are caught. Two scores are settled: both rivals die in a duel.

Blood Wedding

»If I survived, and others didn’t, then it was probably to attest to what Auschwitz was.« Said Zofia Posmysz, explaining why she wrote her novel The (female) Passenger. Polish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg, who suffered under the brutality of the SS as well as Stalin’s reign of terror, found a guardian and supporter in Dmitri Shostakovich. It was he who suggested he turn Posmysz' novel into an opera. Director Anselm Weber and set designer Katja Haß cleverly managed to depict different times and places – present day and memories: A ship sailing to Brazil in the 1950s. Lisa and her husband Walter are on their way to start a new life when an encounter suddenly confronts Lisa with the past, when she was a KZ guard in Auschwitz. Is the other passenger a former prisoner, Marta? Lisa was convinced she had died but now stands face to face with her. Walter’s dumbfounded and fears for his future as a diplomat – he knew nothing of his wife’s past.

The (female) Passenger

She lives in the here and now, one of the best-known heroines in operatic history, she makes sergeant Don José lose his mind, throwing his life into confusion. His attempts to make her tow the line fail because she can’t be tied down. They gradually drive each other into corners. Bizet’s music brings the differences in their perceptions of love and relationships into contrast again and again: Their downfall starts with light-hearted operetta music, but ends in tragedy. Barrie Kosky’s production quickly achieved cult status after it blasted onto the stage in  2015, and has lost none of its impact, taking the most performed opera in the world back to its roots - Opéra comique. The story’s interspersed and told using concise texts, steering us towards its tragic end. En route, romantic, amusing moments and wonderful dance routines share the stage. Kosky’s vision is fascinating, toying masterfully with usual Carmen and Spanish clichés.

Carmen

In Barrie Kosky's production of The Magic Flute, everything is straight out of a fairy tale, and every idea demonstrates the director's immense sense of humor, who must have thoroughly enjoyed the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. When the red curtain opens, the audience sees only a white screen, where the frolics begin – the director imaginatively juggles, to the rhythm of Mozart's music, elements of silent film, slapstick comedy, and cartoon. The co-creators of this production – Suzanne Andrade and Paul Barritt of the "1927" ensemble – have combined film animation with live theater. The effect is dazzling. Here, Papageno, this bawdy simpleton, here portrayed as a sad clown in the style of Buster Keaton, gets drunk in the company of pink elephants honking cocktails from narrow glasses. The Queen of the Night is a giant spider, Monostatos appears as a pale vampire in a Count Dracula costume, and Pamina wears a black wig with fringe, which makes her resemble the actress and dancer Louise Brooks, a star of silent films.

The Magic Flute

Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera

Manon Lescaut flees to Europe, dreaming of a better life, where she enters into a passionate relationship with a student, Des Grieux. But their happiness is short-lived: fed up with living in penury she takes up with Geronte, working in his nightclub as a dancer. Des Grieux reappears and they rekindle their love. Geronte finds them and words are exchanged, he calls for the police, and Manon, unable to escape in time, is arrested. After fleeing to America together their journey ends in a desert.

Manon Lescaut

This new production of one of the most fascinating contemporary works of music theater celebrates its premiere at this year's edition of the Salzburg Festival. Based on Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, Claus H. Henneberg and Peter Eötvös contributed the libretto for the opera in three sequences. The Klangforum Wien Orchestra performs under the direction of Maxime Pascal and Alphonse Cemin.

Salzburger Festspiele – Tri Sestri

Felsenreitschule

Irina can't bear it any longer; it bursts out of her: "My God! Where has it all gone? I've forgotten everything." Then, as if suddenly: "We'll never move to Moscow." Neither the past with its memories nor the future with its hopes offer any support. Time erodes and shrinks to the present—and here emptiness, dissatisfaction, pain, loneliness reign. A condition that haunts almost all the characters in Peter Eötvös' opera Three Sisters (1998)—they are those from Anton Chekhov's drama of the same name. The reactions are varied: repression or relativization, resignation or escape, and, of course, new dreams, hopes, or even plans. Yet a seemingly unbridgeable gap remains between today and the longed-for tomorrow. Why don't these people make it to Moscow, a symbol of a different, better, more meaningful life? What obstacles—internal, external—hold them back? It's a question we continually find ourselves confronting anew, one that brings us so close to Chekhov's and, by extension, Eötvös's characters. It becomes all the more acute in the face of a suddenly spreading fire—a catastrophe that challenges us to take concrete action, that confronts us with destruction and suffering, with death, and the awareness that our own life could end sooner than we imagined.

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Mikołaj Trąbka

Events

Past events

14 - 27 Jun, 2026

The Tsar wants his Photograph taken / The Clever Woman · Oper Frankfurt

May 10 - Jun 15, 2026

Blood Wedding · Oper Frankfurt

Future and recently performed repertoire

Lescaut in Manon Lescaut by Puccini

Oper Frankfurt

Tusenbach in Three Sisters by Chekhov

Salzburger Festspiele

Papageno in The Magic Flute by Mozart

Polish National Opera

Moralès / Dancaïro in Carmen by Bizet

Oper Frankfurt

Tadeusz in The Passenger by Weinberg

Oper Frankfurt

Leonardo in Blood Wedding by Fortner

Oper Frankfurt

King in The Clever Woman by Orff

Oper Frankfurt

Tusenbach in Tri Sestri by Eötvös

Klangforum Wien

About

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